As many as 31 people are feared dead after Iraqi security forces clashed with
an Iranian dissident group north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi government spokesman said five members of the Iraqi security forces were wounded in the incident at Camp Ashraf.

An Iraqi medical source at nearby Baquba hospital said they had received the bodies of three Iranians, while 16 Iranians, five Iraqi soldiers and one Iraqi policemen were brought to the hospital with injuries. But a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition group in Europe, said at least 31 had been killed and around 300 injured.

The 25-year-old camp, home to some 3,500 people, is the base of the dissident People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, that opposes Iran’s Shi’ite cleric leaders.

Iran, Iraq and the United States consider the PMOI a terrorist organisation.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Ashraf residents threw rocks at security forces in what he called a “riot”. Troops had not opened fire, he said, contrary to reports by camp residents.